Samurai: An Illustrated History - Mitsuo Kure

Samurai: An Illustrated History brings the violent, tumultuous, and, at the same time, elegant world of the medieval Japanese samurai to life. This book of Japanese history traces the story of a unique historical phenomenon: a period of 700 years-equivalent to the entire stretch of Western history between the reigns of the Crusader king Richard the Lionhearted and of Queen Victoria at the height of the British Empire-during which an enclosed civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste.